


I Know Your Face

by thesunkid



Series: Fathers, Brothers, and Sons [1]
Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Community: yj_anon_meme, Curses, De-Aged, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunkid/pseuds/thesunkid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick is permanently de-aged and Damian is not Damian Wayne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Return of the King. The line that tears my heart out every time.

Dick had always known there was something wrong, something off.  He saw it in slight jump of Alfred’s shoulders the few times when he poured a second cup of coffee at breakfast.  When he was ten, he used to think Alfred had just been trying to expand his morning menu, but then Bruce’s fork would scrape his eggs just a little too hard, echoing sharply in the sudden quiet, and Damian’s toast would slip ever so slightly in his fingers before he aimed a dark and murderous look at the old man. 

It was an ugly thing; something dark and oppressive that curled through the house like fog.  It seeped through the gaps between the doors, barring Dick from certain corners of the manor.  It unnerved him, set him on edge.  He found it hidden in the thin hairs of Alfred’s mustache just before he went off to clean the eastern corridor, peeking out from Batman’s eyes every time Dick would mention his parents or the circus—

(They never spoke about Haly’s anymore.  And Haly’s never spoke to him.  On good days he managed to convince himself that they were busy—he was busy.  They loved him and they’d visit, or call, or write when they could.  On bad days he locked himself in his room and cried himself to sleep, cheek pressed to the aged pop-art poster of his last show.)

—and it was there, livid and churning, every time Damian asked for “Father.”

Sometimes Dick couldn’t handle it.  Just being around Bruce, Damian, the manor, even Alfred, was too much.  They were a part of it, whether they knew or not and he’d vowed to never allow himself to be taken ever since he’d stumbled upon the Nightwing File.  It was the first time _Bruce_ and not Batman, had thrown him out of the cave.  He’d asked Damian, who had sauntered over, demanding to know what the racket was about, and it flared back.  It pooled around the boy’s narrowing eyes and pulled at the lines—they shouldn’t be there; something in his gut screamed at him to reach a thumb out and smooth them away—at the corners of his mouth, so much so that it had scared him.  Hastily he’d blurted out some silly excuse and fled to the safety of his room.

Then the Team had shown up.  Wally, Kaldur, Conner, M’gann, Artemis, and even Roy; their presence seemed to blow it all away.  He could breathe without worrying about taking it in.  He could laugh and joke about the circus with Wally and Roy without seeing it simmering from behind their eyes.  They were interested, attentive, and the reason why he was now standing in front of the eastern corridor while Batman was at the Watchtower, Alfred in a meeting with Lucius, and Damian at school.

The hallway was dark, but clean thanks to Alfred’s meticulous schedule, and Dick spent the first few moments mapping out a path to the fifth room on the right, that left the least amount of signs of his presence.  For as long as he could remember that room had always been locked.  He’d been down the hallway a few times when Bruce had first taken him in, but his memories were hazy at best. 

He remembered Damian at five as quiet and secretive as he was now, but there had been a neediness in him as he held on to Dick’s hand, a neediness he never saw aimed at Bruce.

The room had been bright, filled with an assortment of objects that Dick could neither place, nor name.  Everything seemed to blend and swirl together.  He remembered a barrage of headaches and screams, a strange man with an even stranger staff, but mostly he remembered a sweaty little hand that trembled in time with his aching, heaving chest.

He was at the door now, the key he’d swiped from Alfred’s room sitting patiently in the keyhole.  Startled, he took a step back.  The door gazed back at him expectantly, like it had been waiting for him, and forcing down the tingle in his stomach that always preceded a chilling numbness, Dick turned the door handle.

His memories had failed him.  The room was disappointingly empty.  The bed, a practical shade of blue, was made, sheets fresh and pressed; the bookshelf to his right was neatly arranged, not a single one out of line; the floor free of debris; the walls whole and solid; the desk neat and tidy.  It confused him.  What could have been so daunting about such a boring room? 

Just a little relieved, Dick plopped down onto the bed, sending a web of wrinkles out from his seat and relished in the disturbance he’d caused.  He looked around one more time, before sighing and kicking out his legs.  The bed jostled slightly and his heel smacked against something hard.  Hopping down, he fished out the thing.

It was a wooden chest, small enough to fit snuggly in a loose embrace of someone his size.  He set it down in front of him, debating on whether to open it or not.  But the choice had been made for him.  The chest wasn’t locked and when he’d set on the floor, the top had fallen back—apparently it was in need of some new hinges.

Inside was a small pile of photographs, twenty years or so old.  He pulled them out gingerly and started to flick through them.  His brow furrowed.  Some were of Haly’s Circus.  There was his mother, his father, and him, up to various tasks about the tent.  Here they were seated at the breakfast table, his mother engrossed in what appeared to be a deep conversation with a well-dressed woman; his father, Pop Haly, and another man, also dressed to nines, chatted over their eggs benedict, and himself bent over a collection of baseball cards with another boy about his age.

He pulled out another.  This time it was him and that boy again standing in front of Zitka as she sniffed at the boy’s tie, much to his displeasure.  The boy and the couple, who Dick could only assume were his parents, appeared in several more photos with the Graysons and various members of Haly’s Circus.  And it wasn’t until the sixth photo that it dawned on him.  They were the Waynes—Thomas and Martha and—

His hands shook and the remaining pictures fluttered to the floor.  The younger yet, familiar faces of Alfred and Bruce stared back at him.  His mind reeled and that dreaded tingling in his stomach returned.  Something was off here, something was wrong.  He couldn’t have known Bruce when he was young.  He was thirteen and Bruce thirty-two.

Dick moved to get up, when his hand slipped on a couple of overturned photos.  They were newer than the ones with Bruce, less frayed and much brighter in color.  He stared at them for a bit, their white backs flashing up at him in the dying winters light.  Alfred would be back soon, with Damian, and he could picture the look of disappointment that would paint the man’s face when he discovered what Dick had done.  But Dick couldn’t afford to dwell on the rules of courtesy now, not with this.  He wanted answers.  Sucking in a deep calming breath, he slowly flipped the photograph.

His heart seized. 

It was undoubtedly him.  Those were his eyes, his nose, his father’s jawline, and there in nestled in the crook of his arm was the smallest, calmest baby he’d ever seen.  His—because it was mostly definitely a boy, wrapped in blue as he was—face was smooth and wrinkle free, the hint of his mother’s nose peeked out at him from behind the blanket’s folds.

Hastily he flipped the other two over and stood.  He could feel the tingling in his stomach grow stronger as it wriggled up his spine and broke out over his body in waves.  There staring up at him was little Damian, and it was undeniably him.  Be it eleven months, two years or ten years old, Dick would know that frown anywhere.  Shakily he reached out to grip the bedpost, before risking another glance at the evidence laid blatantly out in front of him.

Here was his birthday, one year old Damian scowling at Alfred as he brought out the cake.  There was Bruce awkwardly holding his— _Dick’s_ —son for the first time.  A woman in a white hospital gown; Dick, Damian and Alfred at the park; three year old Damian glaring at Ace as the dog licked the boy’s hands; Dick looking just about over come with nerves at his wedding; Mr. and Mrs. Wayne at Dick’s fourth birthday; the blur of Batman’s symbol as it streaked across the night; eighteen year old Bruce sparing with fifteen year old Dick; Dick curled over the swollen belly of a woman whose face had been cut off; five year old Damian napping on an unfamiliar blue and black costume.

“Grayson, what is going on? Pennyworth is looking frantic.”

Dick’s stomach dropped as Damian—ten year old Damian—appeared extremely disgruntled, in the doorway.  He glanced sharply around the room before landing on the scattered photographs at Dick’s feet.  Immediately his jaw clicked.

Something in Dick ached to smooth the boy’s jaw, to hold and sooth the trembling child in front of him, but the tingling, turned slick coils of nausea, in his stomach kept him rooted to the floor.

Damian crossed the meager three feet between them and stared down hard.  The thing was back again, burning instead, about the room, out in the open, not tethered behind someone.  It flared up, consuming Dick whole.  He reached a trembling hand to brush against the tip of the boy’s nose.

“Damian,” he whispered in a voice not his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://yj-anon-meme.livejournal.com/6185.html?thread=18962985#t18962985
> 
> The mother is intentionally vague because I honestly couldn't think of anyone and didn't want to use Talia, because that's awkward.


End file.
